This is very exciting. I've always bought MP3s from Amazon exclusively because I knew for sure that all Amazon's files are DRM free. With this move by iTunes, it's likely that I'll be picking up some albums on iTunes now if I can't get them in MP3 format from Amazon. Before, I would just live without the music, or buy the CD and rip it.

> With this move by iTunes, it's likely that I'll be picking up some albums on iTunes now if I can't get them in MP3 format from Amazon.

And you won't be able to get them at iTunes either, they use a latter variant of the MPEG codec. (AAC, perhaps you heard of it.)

The good news is that AAC is gaining momentum as a player format. Both the Wii and PSP play it with some SanDisk players supporting. Heck, even the Zune supports it now...

The most important option IMO:

    * MacBook Pro 17-inch Hi-Resolution Glossy Widescreen Display
    * MacBook Pro 17-inch Hi-Resolution Antiglare Widescreen Display [Add $50.00]

I still don't understand people's problems with glossy.

I have glossy and it is just fine inside, outside, at home, at the coffee shop, etc. I have had to once or twice tilt my screen to avoid some glare.

Do you really have a lot of glare all the time? Do you wear a spelunking hat at work? :)

Glare is one problem, but I find seeing my reflection in the screen extremely distracting. Something about that human face keeps pulling me out of the "zone" while I try to code.

PS: I don't know of a better word than "zone" so I hereby name that state Zem, it's like Meditation with the added creativity of Rem sleep. Feel free to start using it in everyday speech.

...wait a minute. You guys actually use the laptop screen rather than an external?

...yeah, because that way you can carry your laptop computer around.

Hmm...yes but at home I dock it and use an external keyboard + monitor. It isn't that crazy, that is probably 30% of my laptop usage.

So 70% of the time your using the laptop screen.

*you're

From the default index.html that is placed in a user's Sites folder on Leopard:

"Open System Preferences and click Sharing, then select Web Sharing.

Your done. Your site is now available on your private network at home or work."

What, what's that about my done?

I plug mine into an external keyboard and mouse at home and at work, but still use the laptop's keyboard and trackpad out of habit most of the time. I think I gravitate to the consistent interface of the laptop rather than the differing setups at home and work. There must be some human interface research on this. That or I am weird.

I got really used to the low travel of keys on my laptop keyboard and just can't stand using external keyboards from that...

...wait a minute. You use a laptop at a desk?

Glossy screens are a killer if you like working in areas with lots of natural light or sunlight.

Try wearing a white tshirt, sitting in partial sunlight, and using a glossy LCD>

Having said that, I find that smaller screens are fine with glossy - like my Acer Aspire One netbook. The bigger the screen, the more of a problem it is.

If I needed a shaving mirror, I'd buy a shaving mirror. They're cheaper.

I have lights behind me at home that can't always be turned off. (IE, if someone's in the kitchen.) It's annoying.

Perhaps it affects people who prefer a light on dark color scheme as opposed to dark on light. Glossy doesn't bother me at all, but there is a lot of white on my screen.

Nice, can't stand the glossy screens on the new machines. Wish they had this option for the 15".

Did not see that one coming.

Apple and Jobs have actually been in favor of this for a while, but were prevented from doing it by the music industry. See http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/

Quote: "The third alternative is to abolish DRMs entirely. ... This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat. If the big four music companies would license Apple their music without the requirement that it be protected with a DRM, we would switch to selling only DRM-free music on our iTunes store."

They had a part of their library drm-free for a while now. I find it more surprising that they changed their position on their pricing scheme. Didn't they even cancel their deal with NBC because they were not willing to allow flexible pricing on their videos last year?

I think entire catalog DRM free + iTunes Store over 3G (instead of just WiFi) were pretty good reasons to finally allow variable pricing.

The DRM-free portion of the iTunes library cost extra money, and most tracks didn't have that option.

My uneducated guess is that the 1.69 pricing tier is a trade for stripping DRM off the backcatalogue.

DRM free tracks have not cost money for the last year.

I-did-not-know-that. (Stop upvoting me for being an idiot!)

Nor I. What a pleasant surprise.

Is the DRM gone for movies and tv shows too?

No. Some music videos are though ($.60 upgrade fee according to the conversion page.)

Cool. Does that mean we can have a linux client now?

Amazon mp3 supports Linux. It added full album downloads via Linux a few months ago.

They are not in Europe yet, though, or are they?

They're in the UK at least.

So it is only Germany still missing out :-(

You forgot Poland.

And maybe france and so on... OK, sorry ;-) I only use Amazon.de

To upgrade your library go to the iTunes Store. On the right side you'll see iTunes Plus (x). Go there and you can upgrade.

I'm not terribly excited about paying again for the same music, but I hate DRM enough to make this 1-time upgrade.

It looks like we might be in the middle of a pricing war between Amazon and iTunes:

iTunes: $.99 + DRM

Amazon: $.89 + No DRM

iTunes: $.69 + No DRM

Anyone care to guess how low online music will go?

$0.30 a song. A significant amount of money for me (and it doesn't detect most of my tracks; I've run one too many ruby scripts on my iTunes Library file). Not worth it.

It doesn't use the tags, it looks up your account history. The MacBook Pro I'm sitting in front of doesn't have any of the music it's offering to upgrade to iTunes Plus.

Good to know. Apparently most of my music just isn't in iTunes Plus yet.

Honestly, if you don't think a piece of music is worth 30¢, you don't really deserve to listen to it.

I thought it was worth 99c when I bought it. I don't think it's going to be worth $570 just to strip off a DRM feature that doesn't actually bother me.

Ah, I thought you were replying with regard to the question "Anyone care to guess how low online music will go?"

In the case of upgrading, I don't disagree. Sorry for the wrongful callout, it just drives me nuts when people have thousands of songs and listen to music all the time and say "it isn't worth paying for."

Holy living fuck, I just did the math on how much that upgrade price means I spent on music over the last few years.

Tell me about it. Mine was $430 and I had a serious double take. On the up side, a decent chunk of my music was purchased with the gift cards you get from having an Apple Visa card.

Seriously!

You saved some time by downloading from iTunes rather than via bittorrent. Was that time worth thousands of dollars?

I also think it's wrong to take music without paying for it.

s/take/copy/

You see, I carefully didn't use the word "steal" to avoid the copyfight pedantry, but that wasn't enough for you. "Copying" commercial music that you didn't pay for is unethical, just like "copying" a typeface family, "copying" a website design, or "copying" and black-labeling a GPL'd software package.

I know, right! I mean, if music weren't free to produce and distribute it'd be one thing, but since it is, why doesn't everybody use bittorrent?!?!

sigh

Those thousands of dollars went to pay for the time of the people who created the work that I paid for. Kind of like people pay me for my time.

He's referring to the upgrade cost, not the actual price.

Is there a way to just "upgrade" certain songs instead of your entire library?

I don't see .69 songs yet? When does that take effect, I wonder.

End of Q1

Does DRM-free mean that they don't even encode the name of the buyer into the files?

such grand news!!

Tonight at the super table, think about being the hackers on the opposite side of this, trying to make a company around viable DRM technology. Gotta pour a little drink out for them... :)

A really good friend of mine works on Blu-Ray BD+. I don't get the feeling he needs any of my sympathy.

-10 evil point for apple!

+10 evil for apple asking me to pay more money to "upgrade" my DRM tracks to iTunes+

Net: 0

How it that evil? You're getting something other than what you originally paid for.

I know I paid for a DRM track; its just bittersweet that I'd have to pay for the same song again to not have DRM. That nets Apple 0 good/evil points in my book.

You don't have to have it without DRM, and you don't have to pay if you want it to not have DRM. What you're paying less than full price for is a completely different bitstream that happens to be encoded from the same original source. It's not unlike getting a credit toward a CD because you happened to own a tape of the same music, which I think you can agree is a rather novel concept.

I can't agree with the novel concept angle here.

There is no need for analogy here. This is precisely getting a new version of software, which is not in any way novel.

A better physical analogy is paying shipping and handling for mailing in a DRM'd CD that won't play on some of the players you own for a DRM-less CD.

Well I just voted with my dollars and upgraded my whole library. It finished surprisingly fast considering their servers must be getting hammered right now.

Do none of you find it annoying that you have to pay to remove DRM from music that you already paid for? I think this is ludicrous.

When you bought the music, you bought it under the DRM agreement. By paying for it, you said you thought it was worth it. And your payment paid for Apple's servers as this happened.

Yeah, it stinks that you have to upgrade. But they aren't forcing it. I'm keeping my DRMed tracks the same until I have a reason to remove the DRM. It's not costing me anything. And I know this is a one-time deal, that I'll never have to pay extra for future tunes.

Annoying? Yes. Ludicrous? No.

I'm not paying to upgrade because I know it will cost Apple more $$$ to support my DRM tracks. I figure at some point they'll want to turn off their DRM servers and I can only hope they will have a free upgrade path to iTunes+.

What do you expect? They're letting you redownload songs that you already bought. They've sold how many million DRM tracks? So now they just turn on their servers and, without charging, let you redownload every song you've ever bought from them? That would kill their server. I doubt even iTunes could support that all at once.

The pricing helps Apple in two ways: it keeps their server going, and, by adding a charge, it discourages everybody from doing it at once, which means iTunes doesn't break. I understand your frustration, but Apple's doing a good thing by making this available. Complaining is fine, but don't act like Apple's the villain for negotiating an end to DRM in the largest store on the planet.

You're speculating about Apple throwing up prices to prevent their servers from getting "killed". Why do you think they distribute iTunes media on a CDN?

You're also being a bit presumptuous on your accusations of me thinking Apple is "Evil".

iTunes DRM does not require running a server on their end. Only subscription services require that.

How do you authorize new machines?

Some of this is probably for accounting purposes as well. It's the same as when the wireless-G drivers on some device were released after the fact - apple charged existing owners $10 to upgrade so as to not fall afoul of laws regarding earned and deferred incomes.

Just burn the tracks to a CD-RW and then re-import them. This has always been the free way to upgrade your iTunes music.

iTunes+ also doubles the bitrate on that music.

How does the upgrade work?

Based on how FairPlay works, and how quickly the conversion happens, I think itunes probably just gets permission from Apple's servers to permanently decrypt the files: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FairPlay#How_it_works

But aren't they also improving the sound quality to 256 whatchamacallits? I thought that was another aspect of iTunes plus.

Go to the music store. There is an iTunes Plus link under quick links.

Thanks. I just did this too - goodbye DRM! 57 songs upgraded for $15.40, not too shabby.

Awesome so any good music recommendations, I have never bought from iTunes and I can now, so what should I get?

Check out: http://thefeelgood.com/

Hmmm really voting with your wallet to not buy DRM music and then supporting the release of not DRM music is a bad thing?

Hacker News is not about music recommendations. Read http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

That is the guidelines for news submissions, it doesn't say that discussion and comments on submissions can't discuss any topic users find interesting. I think it was related and on topic to the thread.

There has been several threads on HN about what music people listen to while programming.

What a phenomenal gesture towards the interest of consumers.